General help advice please - longish sorry

[redgirl]

I will try to keep this short!!

I own a 15h m/w cob who is great, boomproof hacks on forest for couple of hours etc but schooling is a different matter.

He is slugish and I find Im the one doing all the work. Ihave put him onto "go faster food" and it has helped a bit. But he finds canter hard and if we do a full lap the flags come out!! I have never cantered him into a jump not through lack of trying he cant seem to balance himself.

If I ask for him to work on the bridle he slows even more, we are getting there in walk and 50% of the time have a nice march but trot is a nightmare.

have been having lessons and t he instructor just calls him lazy, and uses a lunge whip to help keep him going which works.

Any surgestions of how to get him to move forwards, is it me!!

 

[lochpearl]

have you tried spurs?

 

[saskia295]

How old is he? If he's a youngster, maybe he's not been started properly to move forward from pressure?

Also, have you had his teeth/back/saddle checked etc? He may be in pain if/when he tries to engage, which would put anyone off tbh!

What's he like out hacking? Sometimes they can switch off a bit in the school so perhaps it would be worth schooling whilst you're hacking to keep him interested etc?

 

[AmyMay]

Have you ever tried to school him in a field where he may find the going easier than a school surface??

 

[mrogers]

just sounds like hes trying it on. Unfortunatly some horses do need pushing. If hes not going on the bridle it sounds to me like hes not coming from the hind.

Try lots of transitiong in your warm up to get him forward thinking ie trot to stand,5 paces in walk, 7 in trot back to walk again

 

[AmyMay]

[ QUOTE ]
just sounds like hes trying it on

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't agree. Some cob types (depending on their build) find working in the school incredibly difficult. The key is to recognising which is which.

 

[Peanot]

I watched my friend have a flatwork lesson with my trainer last week as she has problems keeping her mw cob going forwards.
My trainer got on and assessed him and he was going forwards lovely. She explained that the more my friend used her leg, the more lazy he became. So the idea was that my friend had to get him to trot, and make him go forwards, but not to nag, and to give him a quick hard kick with her legs and when he went forwards leave him alone, but when he lost impulsion, give him another kick. It did work for him and then she had trouble stopping him,

Of course this wouldnt work for all horses, but its worth a try.

 

[Keltic]

I used to have this problem with my cob, in my lessons i worked harder than she did!! I could not get canter at all in the sch, so in the end my instructor sent me into the field and made me canter around then trot straight back into sch and ask for canter again after doing this several times we cracked it, I also had to wear spurs in the sch to begin with but dont need them all the time now as find she is a lot more responsive to the leg.